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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Golden Bee" data-source="post: 9376185" data-attributes="member: 7041055">Monster in the mine!"How much is this guy paying you?" Devika asked the henchmen. "I have my checkbook with me.""11,000 [modern] dollars to whomever can capture, kill, or otherwise remove the Copper Mine Monster!"It was the dog days of summer in New York, so Ziegler Security Services made their way to Michigan, where a monster was afoot and there was publicity to be earned.The group (Trudy Truman, Devika Velyapur, faithful farmhand Elliot McCaffrey, and scumbag tomb-raider Dr Hemet Hazoul) weren’t particularly financially motivated. In fact, millionaire Devi gave 11[modern] large she "found in envelope" to the local soup kitchen.Hemet didn’t have his eyes on the prize either. Instead, he got into a verbal and nearly physical altercation with Ernest Hemingway, over the tired woman holding the ladle.Yeesh.The non-ZSS fortune hunters made the monster hunt harder than it had to be. Three Swiss tourists tried to restrain the naturalist. The British big game hunter ruined any element of surprise.Our heroes headed down, and soon heard a loud noise behind them… and smelled a huge cloud of dust. Was it the monster chasing them? No, someone had blown up the entrance to the mine!No way out but down. The bad Professor put his skills to use modifying a mine car, finding out that someone had broken the brakes. With a little know how though, he made it two-speed and reversible. That helped stop it before the group was sliced to pieces by a razor wire!Soon, the group found the final Swiss tourist… and the monster! It was a sloth the size of a bear, menacing the backpacker, in a pit twelve feet below!Elliot carefully lassoed the tourist, using a length of rope and the cart to pull them to safety. Devika Velyapur, mystic orphan, used The Whammy to pacify the creature. McCaffrey had to hustle back though. As a rancher, he had much more experience with animals than the Turkish professor or Australian journalist.  (It’s worth noting: Trudy's family background in mining kept the group alive, too.)The group's kindness was repaid when another creature appeared… Nearly filling the pit, eleven feet at the shoulder and as wide as a Cadillac!The Texan and the Hyderabadi made slow, soothing gestures…And once the mine monsters were calm, Devika let a few tears slip, remembering her own mother.***It turned out the mine led into a huge natural cave. And not only that, there were muddy footprints…proof the saboteurs were nearby! it was lucky that Devi had spent so much time with her cat burglar father… Trudy almost stepped on a trap-explosive labeled "Lancaster Industries". ***Our heroes had the drop on the villains. But Devi, frustrated and sweaty, marched right into their camp. She confirmed that these miners were responsible… And when their boss emerged, bought their loyalty!That’s when a hidden rifleman took aim at the party. But Elliot was a better shot. In a firefight, momentum can build up fast. Ell got the guy in the shoulder, which threw off their aim… which gave Ell the time to line up another shot, iron-sights to eyebrows.In the camp, bossman Cheerful Charlie, was strong minded. He resisted the Whammy, and responded to the girl by pulling out a hunting knife! She had agility on her side, but that was about it…except for the timely intrusion of Trudy and professor Hemet!Tru cleared a way to the campfire, Hem hurled a flaming log at Charlie’s dome. As a tomb-looting lowlife, the prof had been around a knife fight before. They needed Charlie's blade. He went high, Devika went low, and Trudy picked up the discarded weapon. Elliot came up from behind with a brutal bearhug.Everyone was saved from the mine collapse. The creatures were set free, and a wall was built between the mine and their habitat. Trudy put out some stories… and went through her Rolodex. She had an idea.***"Mr. Lancaster? You have a meeting with a ‘ZSS’, should I show them in?"Lancaster Industries was more modern than tomorrow. Sleek lines, art moderne everything. At the center of everything sat modern millionaire Rafe Lancaster.The group wasn’t mad, not exactly. But they didn’t like the suggestion that they "not take it personally". Scientific projections had proven, conclusively: adventurers were bad for arms manufacturing.  Eliminating them, through monster traps or wedding attacks, or funding thieves who pretended to be aliens… That was smart business. Not personal.Trudy asked the obvious question: if Rafe had so many scientific predictions, why did he keep failing?Miss Velyapur pulled some cognac out of her Schiaparelli purse.The adults left, leaving just the millionaires.</blockquote>

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